Monday, February 4, 2013

Cassandra Rose Clarke

Cassandra Rose Clarke is a speculative fiction writer living amongst the beige stucco and overgrown pecan trees of Houston, Texas. She graduated in 2006 from The University of St. Thomas with a bachelor’s degree in English, and in 2008 she completed her master’s degree in creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the author about what she was reading. Clarke's reply:

The Little Sister, Raymond Chandler

Sometimes I get in the mood to read Raymond Chandler. I’m not sure why this happens, although I suspect it’s because I love his prose so much, especially the descriptions and the weird metaphors. At one point in this book, he describes a woman as smelling like “the Taj Mahal at night.” I mean, what does that actually smell like? But it does suggest a certain type of perfume, and I like the interesting quasi-synesthesia of linking a scent to an image.

A Paradigm of Earth, Candas Jane Dorsey

I was in a reading funk when my boyfriend suggested I try this novel. I’m moving through it slowly, alternating with The Little Sister, but I think this is the sort of book that’s best read slowly. It’s literary fiction masquerading as science fiction, centering around the relationship between an alien and a group of artists living in a Canadian co-op.

When I started reading, I’d assumed the book was written in the last year or so, but halfway through I learned it was published in 2002, over a decade ago! The book is set in the near future — so, right about now. Which makes it one of those the-future-according-to-the-past books, in a weird way. Dorsey is oddly prescient about some facets of life in the twenty-teens, and strikingly wrong about others. Either way, I find that disconnect between the once-future and the current-present enjoyable to read.

“Joyas Voladores,” Brian Doyle: I teach freshman composition for my day job, something I’ve been doing long enough that I have the reading list all but memorized. While I’ll generally do a cursory reread of the assignments, it’s not necessarily a requirement for me at this point. However, I always carve out time to spend with “Joyas Voladores.” It’s my absolute favorite essay out of our anthology — a short, devastating examination of the nature of human relationships. The writing itself is beautiful, more poetry than essay, and the structure is a marvel, moving from physical hearts to metaphorical ones. My students usually greet the essay with bafflement, and I love that I have the opportunity, semester after semester, to explain the wonders of “Joyas Voladores” anew.